Coal exports by Mongolia have recorded slight growth of 1% on the month to 3.68 MnT in May’19 as against 3.65 MnT in Apr’19. Export volumes had however slipped 7% Y-o-Y from 3.96 MnT in May’18.
Mongolian coal supplies to its chief customer-China, grew 3% M-o-M to 3.65 MnT in May’19. Remaining coal quantity was shipped to Singapore.
During the first 5 months of CY19 (Jan’19-May’19), Mongolian coal exports have increased 7% M-o-M to 15.07 MnT, primarily driven by higher intake from China.
Chinese coal import in the period was marked 6% higher on the year at 14.77 MnT.
Aspire Mining obtains approval from Mongolian Reserve Council:
Mongolian coal developer, Aspire Mining, has received the thumbs up from the Mongolian Mineral Reserve Council, which approved the total ore reserves estimate for its Ovoot Early Development Project, or “OEDP”.
In a comprehensive update, the company also outlined that approvals for its Mongolian-compliant Ovoot Feasibility Study updated with the OEDP Pre Feasibility Study (PFS) results were also expected shortly from the same Government agency.
These milestones form the technical basis for all other project permitting and enable Aspire to commence the related environmental studies.
Given these developments, Aspire revealed that the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) was now expected to hit the streets by the end of 2019 and that it was still on track for the first production of washed coking coal in the first half of 2021.
Aspire is the 100% owner of the Ovoot coal project which is the second largest coking coal project by reserves in Mongolia.
The company is targeting early production of washed coking coal from the Ovoot project via a truck and rail operation to end markets, within 12 to 15 months of final operational and board approvals.
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